As Minnie lay nestled to his heart, and once more, as of yore, smiling
in his face, he told her of his intention of going to Uplands without
delay, resolved upon confiding all to Lord Randolph, to prevent further
mistakes. Minnie fully concurred in his opinion; and yet, she could not
name this latter without a painful blush. It was the recollection of
Miles's suspicion which called up this evidence against him.
"I will not have you even blush at his name," he whispered fondly;
"though not in love, I shall be perhaps envious of the emotion which
creates it. I am a jealous wretch, darling; I would have every flutter
of your heart for myself alone." Much more he said in the sweet
half-hour he gave to reconciliation, and sincere regret for his cruelty;
and then, with a heart free from every cloud of doubt, he took an
affectionate leave of her; twice, indeed, he returned, as though it were
impossible to quit her, and at last, with a rude effort, tore himself
away, determining to remain as short a time as possible. His carpet-bag
was in a fly at the door--Minnie watching him step in from the window,
when a gentleman's cab drew hastily up, and Mr. Vellumy's voice
exclaimed "Hallo, Tremenhere!"
Miles was leaning forward, to kiss his hand once more to his wife. The
appellation startled him not a little. He turned hastily round. A frown
crossed over his brow.
"G_w_ay told me last night," said the other, in reply to his cool "How
d'ye do," "that you would be coming down to-day, and, as I am returning,
I thought we might go down together. I see you have your carpet-bag, so
of course you are off there--lucky I just caught you--here, step into my
cab, and send away your fellow; I'll spin you to the railroad in no
time."
All this looked fair and above board. It was not written on Vellumy's
brow, that he had a correct list of all the trains in his pocket; he had
been for half an hour watching on the road, expecting what had happened,
namely--the departure from home of Tremenhere.
"You're very good," answered he, still distantly; "but it is scarcely
worth while changing for so short a distance."
"Pa_w_don me," lisped Vellumy. "'Tis a long way; come, do be sociable, I
hate t_w_a_w_elling alone."
"He's a good-natured fool," thought Miles; "why refuse? conciliation is
my object, so here goes;" and, making some sort of apology for his
abruptness at first, he stepped out of the fly into the cab, and casting
a long look at the curtain, behind which he saw Minnie's face, they
drove away, and arrived without accident at London bridge station--just
caught the train--and started for Uplands. We should mention that
Vellumy stopped for an instant at his club--threw the reins to
Tremenhere--and in less than five minutes was again by his side.
Tremenhere was in unusually good spirits; he felt almost mirthful. He
was going to place his beloved wife on a pedestal whence no slander
could shake her; henceforth he was resolved openly to speak of her; he
had learned the evil attending concealment. His heart was full of sweet
thoughts of her; he determined, however, to speak first to Lord
Randolph, and then let him present him, in his new character of
Benedick, to his friends.
"Do you know," he asked, starting from a reverie, "why Lord Randolph
desires my company so especially at Uplands?"
"Cannot say," answered Vellumy, smiling, "unless it be to call your
palette into requisition, to pourt_w_ay the beauties of his ladye-love."
"Lady Dora Vaughan?" asked the other in surprise. "I thought she had
quitted Up--. Indeed, I _know_ she has," he added hastily; "I saw her
to-day."
"Not Lady Do_w_a," answered Vellumy, with a knowing smile. "Some one else
he is ve_w_y much in love with, a----" Up to the present moment he had
been talking at random, just to divert Tremenhere's ideas from any thing
singular in the summons the other had received. Some thread from the
Parque's weaving surely, tangled round his shallow mind at this
juncture, and drew him on, without thinking on his part, to add, by way
of "fun:" "I don't know that I ought to tell you"--this was said
confidentially--"but G_w_ay is deucedly in love with some married woman,
q_w_ite a beauty, I hear."
"Indeed!" was the thoughtful, half painful reply, yet he could not tell
where this information galled him.
"Oh yes!" continued the confidential Vellumy; "it is a recent
affair--G_w_ay is te_w_ibly in love," he glanced smilingly at the
thoughtful Tremenhere.
"Do you know her?" asked he.
"No, he's ne_w_er let me see her; it is quite a romantic affair, of
_w_ecent date."
"Married, you say?" inquired Tremenhere, trembling he scarcely knew why.
"Then of course the passion is a hopeless one?"
"What an innocent you would make me think you!" laughed Vellumy. "Her
husband, I hear, is a jealous cu_w_mudgeon; she's af_w_aid of her life
of him, but, f_w_om all I hear, I should certainly say she loved G_w_ay,
and not a little."
A cold chill passed through the other's frame, then suddenly recalling
his cruel suspicions of Minnie, which had been so completely obliterated
from his mind, he shook off the incubus hanging round his heart, and
said mentally, "I am again playing the madman! There are thousands of
married women with whom Lord Randolph is acquainted." And, resolved to
banish these thoughts, he started a totally different subject, and
conversing indifferently they arrived at the end of their journey. They
found their host absent, however; he and some friends were out shooting,
so a servant said, but would of course return for dinner. Tremenhere
took possession of the room awarded him, and afterwards he and Vellumy
amused themselves with billiards for an hour or two. Lord Randolph was
one of the most oblivious personages in the world; he totally forgot, in
the turmoil of other thoughts, that Marmaduke Burton had on a previous
occasion declined meeting Tremenhere; great, then, was the unpleasing
surprise of both, when Lord Randolph entered in shooting trim,
accompanied by the latter. Tremenhere's brow flushed with pride as Lord
Randolph said, slightly presenting them, "I suppose you two have met
before?"
Burton looked pale and uncomfortable; Tremenhere said boldly, "We have
met often."
Their host looked up at the tone, and, bursting into a reckless,
good-tempered laugh, said, turning round on one heel, "Egad, now I
recollect! Burton, you fought shy of Tremenhere last time he was here,
and shirked a meeting. Come, I'll be sworn you've quarrelled about some
woman; you must oblige _me_, and make it up: this I intend to be a day
of peace-making;" and he gave a peculiar look at Vellumy, who responded
to it in an equally significant manner. All this by-play was unnoticed
by Miles, who, in answer to Lord Randolph, said, "Your lordship is quite
right; that gentleman and I have quarrelled about a woman, yet not quite
as you suppose, possibly."
"'Pon my life," answered their host more seriously, "I'm a thoughtless,
forgetful fellow, or I ought to have called to mind, Burton, that when
you and Tremenhere were down here together the other day, you quitted to
avoid him. This should convince you, Tremenhere, that Burton bears no
animosity towards you; come, oblige me: be friends, forget old
grievances."
"Animosity! and forgetfulness!" cried Tremenhere. Then, lowering his
tone, he added coldly, "Lord Randolph, there are persons with whom
estrangement is more consonant to our feelings than friendship; but his
presence--I mean the presence of my worthy cousin----"
"Cousin!" exclaimed their host and Vellumy in a breath.
"I disclaim it!" cried Burton, trying to appear calm; "that is, except
indirectly--left-handed."
"Man!" said Tremenhere, energetically making an involuntary step towards
him. The other two made a movement to prevent any collision; but
Tremenhere stopped as Burton shrunk back. "I am a fool," he said, "to
forget my noble part--patience. Pardon me, Lord Randolph; whilst I am in
your house as guest, I will no more so offend--I will conduct myself as
if such a person as that man had never existed. When I proclaim our
relationship again, he shall tremble more than he does even now--look at
him!" And, turning contemptuously away, he quietly interrupted an
awkward apology which their host was commencing, by--"Has your lordship
had good sport to-day? We artists lose these more wholesome pleasures,
amidst our palettes and pencils."
Lord Randolph was well pleased at the turn affairs had taken: he had
not brains enough to carry out two things at once. All his ideas were
now fixed upon one great achievement, foreign to this. Burton seemed so
awkwardly ill at ease, that Tremenhere could almost have found it in his
heart to pity him. After the first feeling of annoyance occasioned by
his presence, he felt gratified, as he would be a witness of the public
justice he purposed doing Minnie; and, in this mood, he quickly
recovered his equanimity of temper; and, when he took his place at the
dinner-table, Lord Randolph was fain to admit, even with the then
prejudice against him, that certainly honest uprightness sat upon his
brow, and lightness of conscience in his easy gaiety; whereas Burton
looked pale, discontented, and gloomy. Tremenhere took not the slightest
notice of him; there was no sneer, no avoidance, but a quiet
obliviousness of his existence, especially annoying. Their host was in
high spirits, and, with the well-bred ease of a perfect gentleman, put
all his guests, as far as he could, on that pleasant footing. Several
peculiar looks passed between Vellumy and himself, more especially after
the former's return to table, whence he had been summoned by Lord
Randolph's valet.
"Vellumy," he cried, laughing, "you look as if you had seen a ghost;
'pon my life you're pale."
"Am I?" responded the other in the same tone; "I have, howe_w_er, seen
no ghost, but a spi_w_it of g_w_ace and beauty."
"Where?" asked the others, in a breath.
"Ask Randolph," said Vellumy; "I ne_w_er tell tales out of school."
"Pshaw!" answered the host, giving a half-frowning look at his friend,
"there's not a living woman here, that I ever see, now the women folk
and their maids have departed."
"Talking of that," said Burton, "when do you become one apart from us--a
respectable married man?"
"Probably never," was the decided reply. "Lady Dora frowns upon my suit;
and----"
"You have little pressed it of late," hazarded some one.
"I never saw two less like lovers than you were, down here the other
day."
"By George, no!" cried Burton; "you were always running up to
town--there must be some magnet there, I fear. Lady Dora should look to
it."
Vellumy laughed aloud.
"Oh, Vel is in the secret!" exclaimed the first speaker. "Tell us, is
she dark or fair?--fair for a guinea! for this morning at breakfast he
was raving about golden hair, and cheeks blushing like the inside of a
sea-shell, which the amorous sea bathes in tears."
"Poetically described," said Lord Randolph, colouring slightly; and
almost inadvertently his eye rested on Tremenhere, who was pale and
silent. "I shall, probably, _never_ marry," continued he; "that is, not
till I grow a cranky old bachelor."
"You have changed," said Tremenhere in rather a low tone, feeling it
necessary to say something; "and not for the better, I think. If people
must marry, why, let them do it in youth--that is, not extreme youth,
but not with too much disparity--a year or two on the man's side."
"Only _that_!" exclaimed Burton sarcastically, half addressing
Tremenhere, who looked him full in the face, but made no reply; the
blood, however, painfully rose to his brow. The remark was not lost
where he intended it to tell.
"The misfortune is," said one of the guests, "that we men do not gain
wisdom with age--our wise teeth are the first to decay and desert us. We
forget how many years have gone over our heads; and at sixty expect some
lovely girl of twenty to love us for ourselves alone."
"A grave error," answered Tremenhere, laughing. He was resolved, if
possible, to chase painful thought, and the cold, unfounded suspicions
gathering round his heart. "For an old man, marrying a young girl,
generally becomes like a hoop in a child's hands; which it trundles
before it whither it will, giving it hard knocks at every step!"
"Bravo!" cried several.
"It is not always thus," said their host, laughing. "Some old fellows
weary their young wives to death; these always remind me of a punishment
I have read of somewhere, where a living person was chained to a corpse
till death came--some old men are brutes."
"I'd poison such a one!" exclaimed one man, laughing.
"I know such a being now," responded Lord Randolph, "with his hair dyed
a purple black, idem whiskers, and one of our celebrated dentists is
guilty of affording him the means of mastication, and life."
"If I were his wife," said Tremenhere, "I'd take away his teeth, and
starve him! 'Twould be a decay of nature, nothing to affect the
conscience!"
Some more jests were passed on this subject; and when silence was a
little restored, Burton asked, "But Vellumy has not yet accounted for
the fair spirit he spoke of--where is she?"
"In the picture gallery," answered Lord Randolph, hastily. "Tremenhere,
you are such a deucedly lazy fellow, that, till you send me your
'Aurora,' I have gladdened my eyes with a Venus; you must give me your
opinion of her by candle-light. Vellumy loses himself in ecstasy before
her."
"By whom is she?" asked Tremenhere.
"Gad I forget! some young aspirant. I have a fancy of my own, to bring
forward unknown genius and beauty."
Here again he looked at Vellumy, and again a cloud passed over
Tremenhere's heart. Much more was said on various subjects. The cloth
was removed--the wine circulated freely. Vellumy whispered Tremenhere,
"Come along; leave those fellows drinking; let's go and have a quiet hit
at billiards."
Both rose. "Where are you off to?" exclaimed Lord Randolph; "I'll have
no shirking, Vel. You and Tremenhere remain--we'll all go shortly."
"You can join us," answered Vellumy; "we're going to see the Venus
first," and he moved to the door.
"I'll be shot if you do!" cried their host springing towards, and
locking it.
"That's right!" cried several; "keep them in! That's not fair to leave
so soon."
"Done, my boy!" exclaimed Vellumy, rushing to another--a side one. "Come
along, Tremenhere; we can find our way through this passage."
"Try, try!" shouted Lord Randolph after them; "the doors are locked that
way, you must come back."
"This way, Tremenhere," called Vellumy, running on before; "up this side
passage, and the private stair, to G_w_ay's own rooms; I know the way,
come along!"
They had both been drinking rather freely, and in the cup Tremenhere had
forgotten all annoyance.